By Jake Coyle, Film Writer
NEW YORK (AP) --The eighth installment of the "Mission: Impossible" franchise has been postponed a year, signaling a new wave of release schedule juggling for Hollywood studios as the actors strike surpasses three months of work stoppage.
Paramount Pictures on Monday shifted the release date of the next "Mission: Impossible" from June 28 to May 23, 2025. Production on the follow-up to Christopher McQuarrie's "Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One" was paused in July while Tom Cruise and company embarked on an international promotion blitz for "Dead Reckoning." (The sequel had been titled "Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part Two" but is now simply listed currently as "Mission: Impossible.")
"Dead Reckoning" ultimately grossed $567.5 million worldwide, falling shy of 2018 installment "Fallout" ($791.7 million globally) and the heady highs of Cruise's summer 2022 blockbuster "Top Gun: Maverick" ($1.5 billion). The 163-minute-long action thriller, drew some of the best reviews of the 27-year-old movie franchise, but was quickly eclipsed by the box-office juggernauts of "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer."
As Hollywood's labor turmoil has continued, it's increasingly upended release plans not just for movies this fall that want to wait until their stars can promote them ( like "Dune: Part Two," postponed to March), but some of next year's top big-screen attractions.
A string of Marvel movies have previously shifted back, as did the third "Venom" film. "Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse," has been delayed indefinitely after being dated for March 2024.
Paramount also announced Monday that "A Quiet Place: Day One," a prequel to the post-apocalyptic horror series starring Lupita Nyong'o, will have its release pushed from March to when "Dead Reckoning" had been scheduled to open, on June 28.
Negotiations between the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and the studios are scheduled to resume Tuesday.
Harvey Weinstein hit with new sex crime charge in New York
Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a new sex crime charge in New York, as he awaits retrial in his landmark #MeToo case.
Details of the new allegations were not immediately available. He was charged with committing a criminal sex act.
The jailed ex-movie mogul has long maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.
Prosecutors revealed last week that Weinstein had been indicted on additional sex crime charges that weren't part of the case that led to his now-overturned 2020 conviction. But the new indictment was sealed until his arraignment.
Prosecutors have said that the grand jury heard evidence of up to three alleged assaults — two in hotels in the Tribeca neighborhood and one at a lower Manhattan residential building. The purported incidents took place from the mid-2000s to 2016, prosecutors said.
But it's not clear whether any of those allegations underlie the new indictment.
While bracing for the new charges, Weinstein also is awaiting retrial after New York state's highest court this spring overturned his 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges involving two women. The high court, called the Court of Appeals, ordered a new trial, which is tentatively scheduled to begin Nov. 12.
The Court of Appeals ruled that the then-trial judge unfairly allowed testimony against him based on allegations that were not part of the case. That judge's term expired in 2022, and he is no longer on the bench.
Prosecutors have said they'll seek to fold the new charges into the retrial, but Weinstein's lawyers say it should be a separate case.
Weinstein, who also was convicted in 2022 in a Los Angeles rape case, remains behind bars while awaiting his New York retrial.
Weinstein,... Read More